


this ocean between us

by cruellae (tinkabelladk)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Implied Relationships, M/M, Season 3 Spoilers, a marriage takes work, thisisfine.jpg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 03:08:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30032094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinkabelladk/pseuds/cruellae
Summary: In the ruins of Shiganshina, Levi makes a different choice.
Relationships: Levi Ackerman/Erwin Smith
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	this ocean between us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spanish_sahara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spanish_sahara/gifts).



> A gift exchange for Lica, who requested an “au where levi chooses erwin for the colossal titan, but erwin comes back unhappy and unfulfilled.” It’s my first fic for this fandom, so I hope it pleases!

The forest was dense and verdant with old growth and new life. Cicadas sang their desperate mating songs in the sweet summer air and sparrows darted and glided among the upper canopies of century-old redwoods. 

Levi Ackerman moved as quickly as a bird, taking a mad zigzagging path through the trees. A circus trick at high speed, done on wires fine as a strand of Titan hair, a hundred feet off the ground. He moved so he didn’t have to think, pushing himself until his world narrowed to the heave of the breath in his chest, the rush of wind past his cheek as he flew, the thud of his wooden practice sword against each of the targets he’d strung up earlier. 

It was over too soon, the limits of his human body forcing him to take a descending path until ten feet off the ground he leapt, tucked, and rolled to a stop on the rich dark soil of the forest. 

His pace slowed as he made his way back to the house, sweat cooling on his skin. Less than halfway through their forced “vacation,” and he was restless, itchy and agitated. He never would have agreed to such a ridiculous idea, but Hange had pushed for it, saying that after the trauma of their devastating mission to Shiganshina and becoming the Colossal Titan, Erwin needed a break. Erwin went along with it because he didn’t really care one way or the other, and Levi followed Erwin because that was simply what he did. 

Now the two of them had three weeks in an isolated house at the edge of a great, vast forest to...relax. 

It felt like a death sentence, except that if Levi were dead, he wouldn’t be so miserable. 

Halfway to the house he stopped. Took a breath. Closed his eyes and forced himself to see the Scout Regiment as he had last regarded them—crushed and shattered and broken by the combined might of the intelligent Titans. They had died and he was alive, and if he couldn’t muster up the decency to be happy, he could at least be grateful for their sacrifice. 

After a trembling moment, he opened his eyes and walked the rest of the way down the pleasant cobblestone path to the house. 

Inside the parlor, Erwin was sitting in a plush chair beside a tall window looking out onto what was once a manicured lawn but had by now been mostly devoured by wild weeds. He had a cup of tea beside him and a book open in his lap, but he wasn’t reading it. 

“Have fun?” he asked, glancing at Levi. 

“You wanna join me next time?” Levi replied. 

“Maybe,” Erwin said, but Levi knew he wouldn’t. Even though his arm had grown back after obtaining the Colossal Titan, Levi knew Erwin hadn’t so much as strapped on his ODM gear. Whether his confidence had been shaken or he was simply disillusioned with their cause, Levi couldn’t tell for certain. But he knew something was broken, and it unsettled him deeply as he’d always assumed that Erwin was unbreakable. 

But then, he’d once assumed that the walls were unbreakable as well. 

_ Anything can be shattered if you put enough force into it.  _

“What are you reading?” Levi asked. 

“Oh, it’s nothing. Just a novel.” Erwin turned, and the light of the summer afternoon was reflected in irises like sheer walls of blue ice. “Go wash up. I’ll start something for dinner.” 

It was funny, Levi thought, as he took a slice of bread and Erwin dished up steamed vegetables, how a quiet that used to be comfortable could become so decidedly not. Being with Erwin used to be like wearing old shoes—supportive, protective, and perfectly suited to Levi’s needs. Now it chafed at every turn, alien and uneasy. 

Levi wanted to throw his plate against the wall, to overturn his cup of water, to shout in Erwin’s face until he saw some flicker of emotion reflected back at him. But he said nothing. 

Erwin was not the mother who had quietly died without a single goodbye, abandoning her child to a world that held nothing but cruelty. He was not Kenny, turning his back to Levi the first moment he could. He was not a hundred good men and women whose deaths had left Levi holding onto nothing but ashes. 

Erwin was not any of them, but he  _ was  _ leaving. Levi could read the signs, even if Erwin didn’t know it himself just yet. 

That night, Levi dreamed he was the only person left alive in the entire world. He stood in the center of a bloody battlefield, surrounded by mutilated corpses, the familiar weight of his ODM gear on his hips. The soil was the color of rust, a carpet of dead bodies stretching as far as he could see, and from every direction the Titans came. 

He was not afraid. He cut them down easily, napes peeling away like the rind of a ripe orange. The battlefield steamed with the carnage as he slaughtered them all. 

But they kept coming, and he realized that his blades were stuck to his hands, and he couldn’t put them down. His ODM gear jerked him to and fro, and his body struck killing blows without his consent. And then he became very afraid, because he realized that he couldn’t stop. Even though every other person was dead, he was doomed to fight and kill the Titans for all eternity. 

Everyone he’d ever known had left him, and he could never join them. As another Titan rose up before him, he opened his mouth and screamed. 

—

Levi’s voice, barely loud enough to ruffle the silence, jolted Erwin awake. 

“Don’t leave me,” Levi whispered. And again. “Don’t leave me.” 

Erwin turned. In the moonlight that fell in from the window above the bed, he could see that Levi’s eyes were still closed, his body tense and trembling against the pale sheets. 

“Levi,” Erwin said, soft but firm, the voice of a commander but tempered with fondness. Levi was, after all, his favorite and best weapon. Still here beside him, after so many others were gone. 

Levi jerked awake with a start, gasping for air. After a moment, he seemed to regain his bearings, propping himself up on his elbows. 

“Sorry,” he said, his voice raspy. “Was I kicking you in my sleep?” 

“You were a little restless,” Erwin said. He reached out and brushed a lock of Levi’s hair off of his sweaty forehead. “Go back to sleep.” 

Levi sighed, lying back on the pillow with his hands behind his head. He watched Erwin expectantly, like he had been doing the entire time they’d been sequestered here, like he’d been doing ever since Erwin woke up and found he’d been given a Titan’s gift. Or a Titan’s curse, depending on how you looked at it. 

Erwin wondered what it was Levi wanted from him. Gratitude, for forcing him to soldier on when he’d led so many good men and women to their deaths? Did he want to be thanked for dragging Erwin away from whatever peace he may have found beyond the door of death and back into this living hell? 

“I…” Levi began, then sighed. “You should get some sleep too. This whole stupid thing is supposed to be restful.” 

“I will,” Erwin promised. “I’m just going to do a little reading.” 

“Stay here,” Levi said, turning on his side, facing away. “The light won’t bother me.” 

So Erwin lit a lamp and sat on the bed beside Levi. He opened the book he’d been reading and turned to the marked page. Armin’s tidy handwriting was almost as easy to read as text off of a printing press, and the order of his thoughts and observations was just as fine and meticulous. The journal detailed his ideas, his theories about Titans, the walls, the land beyond, and the future of the Survey Corps. It also contained a detailed roster of people Armin deemed important, a coldly analytical dissection of each person’s psyche and the potential they had to harm or help humanity. Eren was among them, as was Levi, and Erwin himself. 

_ I don’t think he’s quite human, in the way the rest of us are,  _ Armin had written about him.  _ He’s ordered too many men to their deaths to think of them as anything other than pieces on a chessboard. I admire that about him. He’s become a devil so that the rest of us might still be heroes. Both are essential in the fight to save humanity.  _

The journal made it absolutely clear: Armin could have been the future of the Survey Corps, the hope of humanity. He would have made a better leader than Erwin, more clever and idealistic, able to dream big but also pragmatic enough to bring those dreams to fruition. How was it that Levi hadn’t seen that? 

But of course he had. Of course he knew. Levi had simply been selfish, in the moment his selflessness was needed most. 

Erwin’s infallible weapon, his best, strongest soldier, had failed him.

_ He’s the opposite of Erwin, and perhaps that’s why they’re together,  _ Armin had written of Levi.  _ He’s all too human, strong and resilient but breakable all the same. He cares about his squad, about Hange and Erwin. He loves them all, even as they’re devoured before his eyes. His brusque, violent nature makes people think he doesn’t care, but the truth is that he is only ever violent to protect those he loves, and he is only brusque to hide how much he loves them.  _

Erwin set the book aside and laid back down, staring up at the ceiling. He wondered if Armin knew Levi’s other secret, the one that shamed him even as he could not change it. Perhaps Armin had been too kind to write it down, to declare in black ink on parchment just how desperate Levi was for love. How he’d arched into every touch Erwin had ever offered him, always with the edge of fear that any affection would soon be snatched away by death or fickle whims. 

Levi’s love for him was a tool that Erwin used, as easily as he used the ideals and desires of all those around him to work towards his own ends. As Armin had so clearly seen, Erwin was a devil, ruthless and unsentimental in his pursuit of knowledge and his resolve to save humanity within the walls. 

He leaned over and pressed a kiss to the side of Levi’s head, running his hand down Levi’s arm. Levi grumbled something ornery, but leaned into the touch like he knew it might be one of the last he would ever receive. 

Even when he should have guarded his heart above all else, Levi couldn’t help but open it. Erwin wondered what it was like to love so easily, so recklessly. But at the same time, he was glad not to know. 

—

Somehow they endured the vacation. When they came back, the Scouts made their way across the open world to the shining mystery Eren called “the ocean.” 

The air had a strange tang, salt and brine, and the water went on and on, a lake without end. Was there anything on the other side, Levi wondered. But there must have been—Grisha’s memories had shown them as much. It seemed especially cruel that Armin was not among them, as this was more his triumph than anyone else’s. 

Well. Add it to the great pile of regrets Levi carried on his shoulders, a weight that was beginning to crush him every time he looked at Erwin and saw a jaded indifference where there once was fire to light the way through this dark and dismal world. 

Hange had taken over much of the leadership of the Survey Corps, as Erwin had been steadily withdrawing from them all. It was affecting morale, but the recent victories, the sight of the glittering expanse of water before them, were turning the tide. The Scouts were larger than Erwin Smith, even if he was the man who made them what they were. They would endure even after he was gone. 

And Levi was watching him leave. Sometimes he wished Erwin would just get it over with, slip away in the dead of night and leave Levi to the chill of an empty bed and a broken heart. 

The soldiers were frolicking in the water, splashing each other and laughing. Only Eren and Mikasa were solemn, talking quietly to each other on the shore. They were thinking of Armin, of course. Levi was too. 

“Take off your shoes,” Erwin said, coming up beside Levi. “Let’s walk in the water.” 

Levi hesitated. Sand had a way of getting everywhere, but they were here and he supposed there was no avoiding it. He shucked his boots, rolled up his pants, and followed Erwin into the ocean. Eren and Mikasa came to join them as they stood calf-deep, the water brushing up against them as it came and went in in a strange, hypnotic rhythm.

“Do you think this is freedom?” Erwin asked no one in particular. “All this,” he gestured to the place where the endless water met the endless sky. “Does it mean we’re finally free?” 

“No,” Eren said. His voice was quiet but firm, more subdued than the boy Levi had once known, who had been so full of fire and fury. “It’s not freedom out there. It’s just more enemies.” 

“Indeed.” Erwin stared into the distance. “A whole nation of them, with an advantage in numbers and technology like we’ve never seen.” 

“Seems hopeless,” Levi said. But when hadn’t it? 

“Exactly.” Erwin glanced at him, and the shimmer of the sun on the water made it seem like his eyes were burning blue. “It sounds like just my kind of fight.” 

He stood straighter, his shoulders a single taut line. A giant among them, just as he had always been. He stepped forward and raised his voice so that its commanding call silenced all the soldiers around them. 

“From this moment, and in the name of our people,” he said, raising his arm dramatically, “I declare war on the enemies across the sea.” 

“Yes, sir!” The voices of the Scouts sounded as one, and Levi looked down to see his own hand over his heart in a salute, found he’d raised his voice in affirmation just as all the rest had. 

And when Erwin looked back at him, he smiled. 

“Are you ready to take on the world?” he asked, softly enough that only Levi could hear. “I need you by my side if we’re going to win.” 

“Tch,” Levi said, turning his head away to hide his aching fondness. “Do you even have to ask?” 

**Author's Note:**

> _Later, as they walk along the shore, the curious rhythmic movement of the water lapping at their feet, Erwin takes Levi’s hand._
> 
> _“You know,” he says, with a wry smile. “This is quite the discovery. I never thought I’d encounter anything saltier than you.”_
> 
> _Levi shoves him into the surf and as he laughs, salt spray and sunshine on his tongue._


End file.
